Nosotros Somos Malinche: Rethinking Identity, Embracing the Power of Mestizaje

ABSTRACT

In this essay, we examine the role of visual and material rhetoric in rethinking and negotiating identity, culture, and belonging. Specifically, we analyse the La Malinche temporary exhibit at the Denver Art Museum, and how it functions as an invitational site to critique and challenge pre-existing colonial boundaries; to rethink and renegotiate complex, hybrid feminine identities, and to engage in intercultural dialogue. We explore the relationship of the exhibit design and selected pieces to the concepts of mestizaje, Mexicanidad, and feminidad. Finally, we discuss the salience of la Malinche’s cultural transformation from a traitor to an icon, and her importance to modern Chicano/a scholarship, through the connections created in artistic representations of her legacy.

KEYWORDS:

• La Malinche
• Mexicanidad
• National identity
• Rhetoric of materiality
• Cultural memory
• Vernacular visuality/materiality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).